Dudley businessman in court for stocking hundreds of illegal over-sized vapes
More than 400 illegal vapes were seized from a Dudley convenience store where a 15-year-old had been sold an e-cigarette.
The stock, which consisted of over sized tanks containing more that the legal two-millilitre liquid limit, was discovered at The Liquor Well, in Wren's Nest, in two separate checks in 2022.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard that on September 23, 2022, Trading Standards officers confiscated 361vapes during a spot check. The following month, on October 27, a further 44 were found at the premises in Oak Park Road during a sting operation to crackdown on underage booze and vape sales.
Sally Cairns, prosecuting, said the items were discovered after a shop worker failed a test purchase by selling a disposable vape to a child and officers decided to search the premises.
Proprietor Karamjot Singh, who was not present in the store, was subsequently prosecuted for selling an e-cigarette to a child and a consumer offence relating to failure to provide employee information and CCTV. He was fined a total of £200 at Dudley Magistrates Court for those regulatory offences last year.
On Wednesday Singh appeared at the crown court to be sentenced after admitting the more serious offences of unfair commercial trading in relation to the discovery of the illegal vapes at The Liquor Well.
